Where Is The Rust Belt?

[Crawford]

The southernmost portions of the Great Lakes will generally be "warm enough", even for someone used to Gulf bathwater. Further north, it depends. At my parents cottage near Oscoda, MI (about 2/3 way to the Mackinac Bridge), Lake Huron is still fairly chilly, even in late summer. Fine for me and for most kids, but my wife thinks its too cold. And I'm a cold water wimp (won't swim in Superior).

I wouldn't put Maine and swimming in the same sentence, BTW. Too cold for me. Gets somewhat dicey past Boston. Maybe wading in, but not really a relaxing time in the water, unless you have great conditions. I love the Maine coast, but more for the natural beauty.

[UrbanImpact]

The Spivey Building in East St. Louis, IL would make an awesome residential conversion if the area wasn't so creepy. https://maps.app.goo.gl/qX1yzzU72yM1RFmp7
I hope it survives the times.

[lio45]

On a related note to the Spivey building, I've always thought that contrary to the at-first-sight consensus, naming things after people isn't always a great way to honor them.

I mean... just look at this view in front of the Spivey:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sp...er=0&entry=ttu

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I've been swimming in Lake Michigan for nearly 5 decades now.

But "warm enough" is extraordinarily subjective.

Some people seem to have a much higher natural tolerance for cooler water than others.


Warm enough for me, but not for thee.

I can't swim, though I do like being in the water. I've found with cold-ish water, the secret is to dunk my entire body, head and all, underwater. I dunno if it's the temperature difference between my skin dry and immersed, but wading into cool water without dunking is just excruciating. Once I do that, I'm good to go though.

On the other hand, I know lots of people who have no issue getting into cold water, but somehow only feel cold a bit later.

[Emprise du Lion]

Originally Posted by UrbanImpact

The Spivey Building in East St. Louis, IL would make an awesome residential conversion if the area wasn't so creepy. https://maps.app.goo.gl/qX1yzzU72yM1RFmp7
I hope it survives the times.

A developer approached ESTL before Covid about the building, but that went absolutely nowhere. I hate to say it, but it's far more likely that it gets torn down than redeveloped at this point. The same has been true for much of what constituted ESTL's historic downtown.

If STL ever starts booming again, it will likely be far too late for downtown ESTL in all honesty. It could help the next ring of suburbs and their historic downtowns though.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by lio45

Is Lake Michigan clean enough and warm enough (in summer)?

Source

By comparison, Old Orchard Beach

[lio45]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I can't swim, though I do like being in the water. I've found with cold-ish water, the secret is to dunk my entire body, head and all, underwater. I dunno if it's the temperature difference between my skin dry and immersed, but wading into cool water without dunking is just excruciating.

Very true, of course. The single best way to get into really cold water is to be dropped into it (jumping from a bridge or a pier, the higher the better) so the only decision you have to make is to jump.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the pure torture of slowly walking into deepening frigid water from the shore, especially when it comes to the genitals.

[Steely Dan]

* posts deleted *


If you can't argue your point without hurling insults at other forumers, expect you posts to disappear......

[JManc]

Talk of all these cities puts Utica into perspective on just how worse things can actually get.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Source

By comparison, Old Orchard Beach

Thanks a lot for the info. Still very cold IMO, it just took away all my interest in that lakefront piece of land. (Too bad, I really like the Chicago area.)

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by JManc

Talk of all these cities puts Utica into perspective on just how worse things can actually get.

Utica's worst days are behind it, don't you think?
Median home price $175k

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Utica's worst days are behind it, don't you think?
Median home price $175k

Yes, definitely in better shape now compared from when I left in late 90's. Property values and rents have gone way up.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by JManc

Yes, definitely in better shape now compared from when I left in late 90's. Property values and rents have gone way up.

That's probably true everywhere over the past few years, including places like Flint and Gary.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by lio45

That's probably true everywhere over the past few years, including places like Flint and Gary.

I don't think median home prices are pushing $200k in these areas though. Utica is approaching Houston levels of property values but without the economy to sustain them.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by JManc

I don't think median home prices are pushing $200k in these areas though. Utica is approaching Houston levels of property values but without the economy to sustain them.

In the DeVeaux section of Niagara Falls, near DeVeaux Woods State Park, Niagara University and the Niagara Gorge, homes are now pushing close to $400k.
Niagara County has some lovely areas but I never thought homes in the city of NFNY proper would reach these levels.

College Ave is one of the nicest streets in the city proper, but still wild to see.

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...=srp-list-card
https://maps.app.goo.gl/wyvH1819QrK5WHyr7

[Steely Dan]

It can be hard to appreciate the fact today, but Gary really once was a "real" smaller-sized city, with an actual, functional downtown.

This is from the early '60s, at the city's population peak (~180K), and the heyday of MASS employment at the giant steel mill in the background.


Source: https://indianaalbum.pastperfectonli...0736#gallery-1



Unless you wanna cry, don't go google mapping that view today.

only click if you dare

[Wigs]

Steely, that looks like one of the most robust downtowns in America for a city of its size at the time

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by lio45

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...6?from=srp-map

(^ stuff like that raises Gary's average prices vs ESL and Flint.)


Is Lake Michigan clean enough and warm enough (in summer)? Ever since I got used to FL, I found I can't (enjoyably) swim anymore in the Atlantic in places like Old Orchard, Maine, or anywhere in Quebec or northern New England lakes.

That skyline view

Lake Michigan is warm compared to Donner Lake, Lake Tahoe and NorCal beaches where I grew up swimming. Nothing like Florida though.

[llamaorama]

Regarding Gary and US Steel and misplaced nostalgia for past industrial employment bases in cities...

Check out Blytheville and Osceola, Arkansas in Google Maps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missis...ty%2C_Arkansas

Mississippi County, Arkansas is possibly the largest steel producing county in the US if you count electric arc furnaces converting scrap to raw metal. Since the 1980s they've built 4 large steel mills there. One of the largest new plants in the US was constructed by Steel Dynamics and opened in the past couple of years. They've also built other types of industrial plants there since that time, it looks like everything from ketchup to greeting cards is made there.

The entirety of Mississippi County, AR has less than 40,000 people and it's had negative population growth since 1950. It's lost half of its population since then. It's peak was in 1950 at 82,000 and the 2023 estimate is 38,000. Despite attracting industry and jobs that didn't exist even 10 years ago, it's collapsing just as fast as the old rust belt cities. If Gary or Pittsburgh still had those plants, I bet the neighborhoods near them would have still gradually died out. The workers who made a decent living would be replaced by cheap workers and robots and nobody would live in the decrepit housing.

Also The median income for a family is $32,000. 25% of the population is below the poverty line. All that red state economic development in Osceola, AR just manages to keep some of the town off welfare I guess, but making just enough to scrape by.

In contrast look at Manila, AR. Same county but like 30 miles away. It is a bedroom community, but half the houses are new McMansions. It has nicer public amenities and looks less beat down. Also there's Wilson, AR, which is a hamlet with a private school with a airstrip. Obviously what's happening here is working for a living is for suckers. Inheriting 2000 acres of delta agricultural land and collecting passive income is where it's at.

So what really matters is accumulated wealth and economic diversity. Cities have more of that and can sustain themselves when one source of money dries up. That's why Pittsburgh still came out okay even after the steel industry left.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Mississippi County, Arkansas is possibly the largest steel producing county in the US if you count electric arc furnaces converting scrap to raw metal.

Wikipedia says it's the #2 county for steel production, but I can't source that claim.

I have to believe that Lake County, IN is #1 (see below), if such stats are even tracked reliably at the county level. I've only ever seen this data tracked at the state level, and Indiana has been #1 for a long time now, overtaking Pennsylvania sometime back in the '70s I believe.

Originally Posted by llamaorama

If Gary or Pittsburgh still had those plants, I bet the neighborhoods near them would have still gradually died out.

But that's just it, Gary DOES still have its steel mill (the largest in the nation, in fact), along with Indiana Harbor (#2) several miles west, and Burns Harbor (#3) roughly 10 miles east in neighboring Porter County.

They are the 3 largest integrated steel mills in the US (of only 7 remaining), making NW Indiana the nation's steel center, and together producing well over half of the nation's primary steel.


But as was pointed out earlier in the thread, due to radical amounts of industrial automation, it just doesn't take nearly as much manpower (a 90% reduction in Gary Works' case) to make steel as it did decades ago back in Gary's heyday, so despite the fact that the big local plant never closed down, Gary still lost tens of thousands of solid middle-class, family-providing, union-backed jobs.

Everyone automatically assumes that the rustbelt's woes are exclusively a story of factories closing and jobs being offshored, but industrial/manufacturing automation (and its resulting job losses) are also a big part of the story too, as clearly illustrated by Gary, IN and its giant steel mill that no longer needs many people to run.



If the big plant that props up an entire small city closes down and loses 100% of its "good jobs", it's devasting.

If the big plant that props up an entire small city remains open but loses 90% of its "good jobs", it's also devasting.